Picture this: Your nonprofit just completed a wildly successful online and offline marketing campaign that increased revenue, acquired new donors, and even recaptured supporters who hadn’t given in a while. That is great news, but what comes next?
No doubt you have a plan to stay connected with major donors. And you’re probably also working on a strategy to ask those who make small gifts to give again.
But what about donors in the middle?
Midlevel supporters are often neglected, but overlooking them is a costly mistake: They typically make up only 1 percent of a nonprofit’s donors, yet they account for more than 30 percent of total revenue on average.
It’s worth investing time and resources to engage these supporters and make them feel valued.
You can dig deeper into personalization by providing a message that feels specific to each reader.
For many midlevel supporters, giving $1,000 or $2,000 a year is a huge commitment. You probably don’t have the resources to give them the same attention as major donors, but they deserve — and expect — more than just your standard direct-mail or email outreach.
This is the problem so many nonprofits face. The solution is a strategy we call “humanizing personalization.” It falls in a sweet spot between direct mail and the in-person touch applied to major donors. Here’s how it works.
Define what you consider a midlevel gift.
For many nonprofits, the range is from $1,000 to $9,999, but this could be drastically different for your organization depending on its size and needs.
Learn as much as you can about your donors.
Find out their preferences and interests and consider their giving histories. You probably know more about them than you think — the amount they’ve given, the campaigns they’ve responded to, the time of year they’ve donated, and so forth.
Create messages that resonate with them.
For repeat donors, tailor your messages based on their interactions with your nonprofit. For example, people who participate in fundraising events like walkathons usually respond to different communication channels and different types of messages than those who give through higher-end events.
Surveys can be a smart way to gather information about donors, but before you send a survey, use this “get-to-know-you” strategy: Create a series of welcome emails to help new supporters feel good about giving by showing how their contribution makes a difference. Reactions to these emails will give you information about their interests — such as who opens each message and which links they click on. This will help you develop a better understanding of supporters before you deploy a survey.
Use what you learned to craft a strategy and cadence for targeting groups of supporters based on more nuanced information that goes beyond basic categories like name, location, and age.
Focus your messages on the donors rather than the nonprofit.
Move away from an emphasis on your organization, as in: “Please donate to us, and we will use those funds for X. We have helped X number of people/animals thanks to the generous donations we have received.”
Instead, try a message focusing on what a gift will do: “Please donate, and you will help X number of people/animals ...”
See the difference? By simply switching pronouns from “we and us” to “you and your,” you empower the donor to help your cause. Instead of trying to make your organization look fabulous, make the donor feel fabulous.
You also can dig deeper into personalization by providing a message that feels specific to each reader. This goes beyond simply changing your greeting from “Dear Member” to “Dear [Donor Name].”
Use the data you’ve gathered with the techniques described above to craft a message that touches on what’s important to your donors and what they want from their gift. Even though this approach is formulaic, it will not appear that way if you humanize it. Don’t think of it as a letter for 1,000 people. Think of it as a personal letter to one individual — and add a human touch.
Consider two fictional examples based on giving $100 a month for a year to an imaginary food bank:
Example 1: Standard
Dear Karla,
On behalf of the Baldelli Food Bank, I would like to thank you for your generous contribution of $1,200 this year. Your donation has helped us accomplish our goal of providing 100,000 nutritious meals each day to families in need.
We are grateful for your support.
Example 2: Humanizing Personalization
Dear Karla,
Thank you so much for your monthly donation of $100. Your generosity has helped put nutritious food on the plates of hungry children throughout our area, and you should be extremely proud of that!
I know that family is important to you, and I just wanted to let you know that you have helped make a difference in the lives of hundreds of families by providing 3,600 meals over the course of a year. Wow!
Thank you again for making our community a better place.
Although both letters use personalization, the human touch of the second letter:
- Highlights the monthly donation, not just the total
- Connects the donor directly to the cause of feeding children
- Removes the organization from the message while keeping the mission in focus
- Mentions the donor’s interest in family, gleaned from email and survey data
- Reads much more like a note directly from a person than a form letter
The next goals are to stay in touch with your midlevel donors and let them know how important they are to your mission. This helps you hold onto them and possibly inspire a bigger gift in the future.
Be patient.
“Humanizing personalization” is highly effective but requires sophisticated technology and data. It also takes time.
As with major donors, you need to nurture your midlevel supporters and keep them happy. The benefits are not immediate but once they come, they usually keep coming.
Investing in a complex program that doesn’t lead to immediate results may seem like a daunting task. To leap over this hurdle, it’s important to simplify your mind-set.
It reminds me of the advice I give my children: Be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there, and do what you’re supposed to do. Forget about everything else, and just do that one thing.
In fundraising, this means talking to the right donor and delivering the right message at the right time.
Get that right and you’ll reap big rewards. It’s simple math: A midlevel donor who gives $2,000 is worth 80 donors who give $25.
That’s worth the investment.
Karla Baldelli is vice president for donor engagement at RKD Group , a fundraising and marketing firm for nonprofits. She has more than 25 years of experience in fundraising at charities such as JDRF, the American Heart Association, Arthritis Foundation, Salvation Army, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
